It’s your impression that Denis’s Villeneuve’s eyes have been blinking on Spice all his life. The film director has talked a lot about how his mind was opened wide after reading Dune by Frank Herbert at a young age. It is rather an understatement to say that turning the sci-fi book’s visons of murderously feuding families, acid dreams, decolonization, and inter-galactic battles into a movie is an easy task. And, once again, with Dune Part Two, it appears the images that Herbert impressed onto Villeneuve’s imagination all those years back are getting pulled out from his neurons straight to his movie screens.
The fact that the Part Two movie exists today is a small miracle. The director decided to make a direct movie adaption to the novel of a two part series with the sequel not guaranteed. And to add to the chaos the pandemic and COVID struck with great force during the first part. Return to Earth, as promised, is the wartime film: a broader, more powerful chapter with more intricate plot lines to explore.
It comes about right after the conclusion of the first part (which is highly suggested to be watched, although Florence Pugh’s upcoming Princess Irulan does function more as a voice-over recap), in which Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) along with his heavily pregnant mother Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) are taken in by the Fremen, the indigenous population of desert, desiccated Arrakis. Paul, who has fled from the Great Fall after his House was savagely attacked by the brutish ruthless Harkonnens due to Emperor Shaddam IV well behaved Christopher Walken’s disappointments, seeks vengeance on everyone who has wronged him.
Many Fremen among them their leader Stilgar (Javier Bardem) believe that Paul may be indeed the ‘Lisan al-Gaib’, a prophet in their faith; save for the fact that those prophecies were placed specifically by space-witch meddling geishas the Bene Geyserite (of which Paul’s mama Jessica is a member), while Paul’s visions induced by Spice show him series of time places where he gives in to the politically engineered myth of him being a messianic figure only for him to cause an endless bloodbath on the planets. At the same time, Paul is being captured by his infatuation with Chani (Zendaya, whom they were kind enough to grant real screen time to after the gratuities appearance in Part One), a warrior of Fremen, their relationship developing under all… well, the above mentioned all including the amalgamation of such powerful beliefs.
This has Middle-earth content in and of itself and ‘Nolan’ as to the degree of its execution goes through dramatic.
To summarize, there are a lot of tasks that need to be accomplished and for the most part, Villeneuve has complete control over every single aspect. Additionally, amazing sequences are coordinated to entice you: the combat scene which consist of the Harkonnen soldiers is shocking; Chani and Paul’s battling of enemy ornithopters during their rocket- launch mission is exhilarating; and the bass from Paul’s first sandworm ride makes you feel like it’s a 4DX experience. Austin Butler outshines when it comes to the new characters, Butler plays the Harkonnen warrior-boy Feyd-Rautha who is bald and is the complete opposite of Paul, portraying him as devoid of humanity. In comparison to the rest of the film, his arena fight which takes place on another planet is much more enjoyable.
If Part One still did not make it clear enough for the viewers, this one is Middle-earthian in scope, Nolan-esque in the sheer drama of its execution. If anything, Part Two is almost epic to a fault. This film is about cinematic scope and visual aesthetics, and while Villeneuve lays up all the character work (the naming ceremony of Paul; the most sand-based flirtation in a space opera since, well, that other Episode II), there is always a point where relentless scale takes over.
It reaches a terminal velocity of great a critical massiveness and just keeps climbing. Despite the split into two parts, this is a rather large world with rather huge mystic plot–points that are difficult, sometimes, for Villeneuve to wrap around. The character throughline have to confront main characters that, for narrative reasons, begin feeling less and less human. Those people who did not drink the Water Of Life through and through may feel ‘epic fatigue’ with the credits rolling.
The story is not yet finished despite the fact that we have almost reached the conclusion. Despite the fact that part two of Villeneuve’s adaptation finished the first part of Herbert’s first book, this does not signify the end of the adaptation. To say the least, the addition of a Dune Messiah segment is not the end; The framework created by the addition of that segment becomes the basis for a stark closer to the trilogy. Because so, this is quite absolutely a middle chapter, with important threads still left unaddressed which needs to be unwrapped.
Knowing how much talent is on display here unrestricted ambition from Villeneuve, more eye discomforting visuals from Greig Fraser, some new Hans Zimmer tracks (sings inverse for Paul’s theme; wise shouts for Feyd-Rautha) and the narrative that includes a psychic fetes, it would be churlish to make such complaints. Oh yes, and Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin) has a brief Baliset banger; one lyric goes, “His stillsuit is full of piss”. You are not really expected to go out feeling like a million bucks as you leave but it still manages to showcase the brutalist beauty of the desert.
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